Using my neck warmer as an ear and head warmer... mmm, grateful for hot coffee!
This sign cracked us up!
On our way back to hwy. 64/84, we saw more deer.
Out of curiosity, we’d clocked our milage---it was over 15 miles in to the campground - not the 7-10 I thought looking at the map the night before.
We continued north on 84 into Colorado, stopping in Pagosa Springs where we discovered the coolest shop we’d seen yet this trip - Handcrafted Interiors. We had a great conversation with the owner, an amazing furniture artist with Oregon connections.
After a nice break, we continued west past Chimney Rock on to Durango - a town Brad has always wanted to visit since it’s a popular destination for mountain bikers. When we parked I joked with Brad “you have an hour!”
While he shot photos of signs, I checked out the shops and galleries. After a little more than an hour, we both were happy to be on the road again - taking hwy. 160 to Cortez. We stopped nearby at a park with a small lake for a tailgate picnic while watching some geese. Turning onto hwy. 491 we soon crossed into Utah, where in Monticello we turned north on hwy. 191 - destination Moab.
Shortly, we began to see lots of cool rock formations and I practiced my drive-by photography with the telephoto lens and the golden setting sunlight.
Since I used to be a Wilson, we had to stop at Wilson Arch.
We pulled into Moab about 6:15 and were blown away by how much larger the town seemed from what we remembered 21 years ago. After getting gas then a quick visit to the nearby bike shop, it was time to find a place for dinner. We ended up at Blu Pig BBQ since Brad had been craving ribs after our delicious meal in Nashville. It was a busy place, but we didn’t wait long before we were seated, then we shared a bowl of gumbo, pulled pork, ¼ rack of St. Louis ribs and coleslaw with a baked sweet potato. They’d forgotten to bring the corn muffins with our meal, so we decided to take them to go - 4 to make up for their mistake. Breakfast! From there we went in search of the campground a bike shop fella told us about. It was almost 9:00 and dark, which made it a little hard to find, but eventually we pulled into Goose Island campground. We drove clear through, ending up back at the beginning at the only empty site: #1. After we paid, we discovered a pay slip already attached to our site’s post, but as we looked closer at that receipt, it seemed kind of bogus, incorrectly filled out, dates changed, so we put ours up and hoped someone wouldn’t be showing up later to claim it. Tucked into our bed, we could hear noisy campers nearby, and every time a car drove past, I wondered if they’d pull into our site and boot us out! It was not a restful night, but we did eventually sleep.
